Can an old J-Dog learn new Tricks?? Starting a new language

[Skankster]

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What is the oldest someone can be to learn another language??

30-ish?

is 40-ish possible?

50-ish is out of the question right?

What have you seen? Are these older women in their 30's and 40's wasting their money taking english lessons? Are they just enamored by G-Gaijin? What do they actually get out of it???
Is there even a possibility for them to learn English??

[cenic]

16 -- Any older and you have to be marooned on a island surrounded by native speakers. Even then it is unlikely that you will ever drop your silly accent and sound native.

[Taro Toporific]

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What is the oldest someone can be to learn another language????

Not that simple.

Pre-adolescent second-language acquisition is marked by good pronounciation but older learners have the advantage of superior learning skills and perseverance.


Not muchresearch has been conducted onsecond-language acquisition with English language learners in adult education contexts. ...

Krashen, Long, and Scarcella (1979) endorse a "younger is better" position, according to which child second-language learners are expected to be superior to adolescents and adults in terms of ultimate achievement. However other experimenters have found different results. Read about Snow and Hoefnagel-Hohel's 1978 experiment.

[AssKissinger]

I know two things for sure.

1) I was almost 30 when I came here and I can't seem to get the hang of it.

2) You don't know how to make a decent poll.

[gomichild]

Age bears no relevance. If you need to learn it you'll learn.

[Charles]

I started studying Japanese at age 38. Younger students in my classes (college age ~18-20) seemed to have an easier time with memorization, but I had superior organizational skills, and better persistence, so I did exactly as well as any of the young kids.
BUT there is one known problem with older students. Older men in particular tend to lose some hearing, particularly some of the high frequencies. This can make it harder to discern the difference between consonant sounds, like chi/ji for example. My teacher suggested I have a hearing test, and the doctors discovered I had some tinnitus, a high pitched ringing in my ears, that masked some of the hi freq sounds. A classic example of the problems this caused: I was eating dinner at a geshuku and the cook asked me "guchi ni au ka?" and I thought she said "kuji ni au ka?" and I looked at my watch in confusion. She said guchi and I heard kuji. The cook had a good laugh when she realized how she'd confused me.
Anyway, I came back to the US and had an ear exam, discovered the problem, and resigned myself to having trouble hearing what people say. I have pretty good vocabulary and grammar so I figure I can compensate for my weaknesses with other good qualities. And again, that's the one thing that older students have that younger students don't, we old folks have the experience to know how to work around our deficiencies.

[Thanatos' embalmed botfly]

and the doctors discovered I had some tinnitus, a high pitched ringing in my ears, that masked some of the hi freq sounds..

Check your avatar there, brother. If symptoms persist switch to the "Rocket to Russia" lp.

Repeat dosage until you no longer give a fuck.

Rock and roll ain't no riddle man. To me, it makes... good, good sense. Good sense.

[Andocrates]

"guchi ni au ka?" and I thought she said "kuji ni au ka?"

If the ringing in your ears was that bad you would have noticed it long ago. We hear things wrong all the time but we are adapt at correcting them in our native language.

Anyone can learn, at any age. Our brains continue to build new neural pathways no matter how old we are. I remember a van I had. I drove it at 60MPH for so long when the speed limit raised to 70 I'd constantly find myself going 60MPH. Both the van and my brain were in a rut.

You can do anything you believe you can do, and hardly anything you don't believe you can do.

[Skankster]

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I have seen some older learners be successful.

I have a friend and his wife is half Japanese. She never knew her dad and her dad never new her it seems and she lived in Japan until she met her husband @ 38. At which time she spoke no english.
He speaks no Japanese.

Now they are married and have a 3 year old kid.

Their main language of communication is English.
She is now 45 years old.
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[AssKissinger]

Anyone can learn, at any age. Our brains continue to build new neural pathways no matter how old we are.

I appreciate your optimism and I agree that people can learn at any age. However, I also think it's obvious that there's a window of opportunity during youth which slowly closes the older you get. Take, for instance, musical instruments, I'm by no means a virtuoso but still I started playing music as a young child. I'm only an average amateur musician but it's rare to meet someone who took it up later in life who can play with the fluidity that that I can. In the same way, no old fart gaijin like myself is ever gonna sound like a native speaker. That doesn't mean it's hopeless, but Japanese is just hard. It seems like I forget at least one word for every two I learn. Really slows the pace. In America I used to volunteer at the Chinese/Vietnamese community center. I was helping elderly people who were displaced late in life study for their citizenship exams so that they would be ensured welfare benefits in the states. A lot of it boiled down to basic esl help. Those old dogs weren't too quick at picking up new tricks. They did cook up some very delicious food on the other hand. In summation, the older you get, the harder it is to learn a new language.

@ 38. At which time she spoke no english.

I doubt that's really true. I think the English they're taught in school goes a lot farther than most people think. Even if they can't speak it the knowledge is in there somewhere. It's a far cry from someone who really doesn't know a word of a language.

[Charles]

If the ringing in your ears was that bad you would have noticed it long ago. We hear things wrong all the time but we are adapt at correcting them in our native language.

You would think that would be the case, but it often isn't. I wasn't aware of my tinnitus, it wasn't that loud, but my Japanese teacher suggested I have a hearing test, and indeed, they found a low level of tinnitus that was just enough to cause me problems. Many people, especially men that work in noisy environments like factories, driving trucks, etc. have a low level of hearing loss, especially in the high frequencies. Most of them don't notice it because it developed so gradually.

I have more problems hearing women's speech than men, because men tend to have lower pitched voices, my problems are more with the high pitched sounds, especially consonants. I just do the best I can. Fortunately, there are ways to work around the problem in conversation. I had some good lessons in "conversational strategies" that teach you to restate things to make sure you've understood correctly, rephrase things and spit them back out for confirmation, etc. That's the wonderful thing about human conversation, you can always ask people further questions if you don't understand what they said.

Unfortunately, the one Japanese language subject I am most fluent about is explaining my hearing handicap. I am quite skillful at explaining my hearing loss so could you please speak a little louder, I can understand Japanese but I just couldn't hear what you said, etc. I must have a whole library of phrases to explain my problem. It works OK for me, it is good to get a little sympathy from the person you are talking to, it creates a natural human bond.
I have a pretty wide vocabulary and a fairly good grasp of grammar, so I figure there are always ways to work around my problems. I often think about the famous British comedian/Shakespearian actor Jonathan Miller. He said that even into his adult life he had terrible problems with stuttering. But he noticed that if he was about to say a word he had problems with, he could substitute another word he COULD speak without stuttering. So his strategy was to develop a HUGE vocabulary, so he could always quickly come up with a synonym when he was about to stutter a word. But this doesn't work so well with delivering lines of Shakespeare, he also described how exasperated his fellow actors and producers were when he extemporaneously altered the words in a play, it would throw off the other actors, they'd miss their cues because he was making it up as he went along.. ha..

[Charles]

Check your avatar there, brother. If symptoms persist switch to the "Rocket to Russia" lp.

How do you think I GOT tinnitus in the first place? When I was a kid, I used to have a Strat and a Marshall 50 amp. I'd wait til my family all left the house, then crank up the Ramones and play along. I lived way out in the country, but my nearest neighbors, about 1.5 miles away, would phone up and complain if I set the amp higher than about 1 on the scale of 10. I finally sold my amp to a professional musician friend, he ended up selling it too, he said he got too many complaints that he played too loud and drowned out the rest of the band. I got a little Fender Champ amp, I was very happy with it, especially once I found out that Hendrix liked to use the little 5 watt Champ, crank it up to 10 to overdrive it, and then put a mic in front of it, then pump the mic into his Marshall 100 stacks. I still have the Champ, although I haven't played in a while, I busted my finger and haven't quite healed yet. My neighbors still complain even with the tiny wattage of my Champ set on 2 or 3.

[Andocrates]

I had a champ, they rocked. I'd sit a pillow in front of it and play all night.

I figured out the musician hearing connection the first time I met a drummer. From then on, till today, I always protected my ears.

I always avoided Yamaha NS-10 M (recording monitors) Those things damaged more ears then Marshall amps. At least with a Marshall amp you could feel the damage as it unfolded.

[mr. sparkle]

Pongi gave me his Champ when he left for japan 12 years ago. Still works like a charm.

[Charles]

I don't think they've made Champs for almost 30 years, I think the 5w no-vibro units ended production in the early 70s. A lot of people ditched their old vintage tube Champs without realizing how great they were.
I checked around the web and the current model is a "Cyber Champ" which is some digital abombination to simulate tubes, costs around $450. I poked around the used market and used beat-to-shit 5w Champs sell for around $350. I found an original "tweed" (yellow) vintage 1962 Champ on eBay, current bid $720. Yow! I think I bought mine used for about $25 back around 1985.

[Adhesive]

It may get harder as you age, but it's still possible to learn a language fairly well. My wife began learning English at 26 (she's now 32) and speaks it extremely well, enough to graduate from an American college, and her accent is very subtle. People often mistake her for being born here, or at least residing in the US for much longer than she actually has. I think the accent is a luck-of-the-draw type deal though. Some people naturally fair better than others.

[AssKissinger]

Where's your wife from?

[Adhesive]

Kyushu originally, then Osaka for a long while.

[AssKissinger]

Kyushu originally, then Osaka for a long while.

Then she started learning English in middle school.

[Adhesive]

Right, but she claims to have come out of it knowing little more than "Hello, my name is." I'm inclined to believe her considering that I've met many Japanese college students that can't speak a lick of English. I do admit, however, that any exposure at all at an early age is an obvious benefit. Then again, considering English is generally taught in katakana style phonetics, with Japanese teachers who barely speak English themselves, I still believe that accents can be picked up at a fairly late age.